Nur

The Nur, known also as () are the indigenous peoples of Matys. They are connected through shared cultural heritages and the usage of Nuric languages, most mutually unintelligible, which are derived from the Berber-Canarian branch of the Afroasiatic language family.

Hypothesized originally as descendants of ancient Eastern Libyan tribes and later augmented by other ancient Berber tribes of the Maghreb, it is estimated that the Nur arrived to Matys through Macaronesia sometime between 2100 and 1900 BCE. As they spread through Matys in the 2nd millennium BCE, some Nuric peoples retained their simple pastoralist/agricultural lifestyles while other Nuric peoples developed complex civilizations such as the Central Nuric, Southern Nuric, and the Wansaho.

The Central Nuric civilization quietly declined in the later 1st millenium BCE for unknown reasons while contact and trade with Carthage in the fifth century BCE led to the introduction of diseases and the spread of metallurgy that wiped out the Southern Nuric civilization and destabilized the Wansaho. Roman and Germanic settlement, starting in the late 2nd century CE, would see the conquest and collapse of the Wansaho civilization as well as the near annihilation of the Nuric peoples through disease, warfare, enslavement, and genocide. Survivors of the Eastern Nuric peoples would either retreat into the (Great Swamp) to join the (Swamp Nur) or assimilate into Roman/Germanic society while survivors of the Western Nuric peoples would coalesce in the western steppes to become the Phoen.

In the Middle Ages, the (Swamp Nur) became increasingly subjugated then conquered by the Kingdoms of Castra and Matys respectively while the Phoen tribes formed a buffer between the Kingdoms of Matys and Drenna, prolonging the Long War. One Phoen leader, (), would unite all the Phoen tribes under one banner in (1200/1300 CE?), conquering lands in Grecia, Drenna, and Matys, with his infamous sacks of Veldas in () CE and Ultima in () CE. His death, however, marked the last great resistance of the Nuric peoples against the post-Nuric settlers of Matys.

The Phoen and (Swamp Nur) would again face near annihilation by the Empire of Matys but managed to survive under the (Empire of Drenna) and the (First Republic of Matys). Pressures of cultural erasure under the "One Nation, One Language, One God" policy of the latter led to the creation of a common Nur identity and the beginning of the struggle for Nur rights in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Today, the Nur live in communities across Matys but with particular centers in the autonomous state of Phoen and the autonomous region of (Nurakal) in East Matys. While Nur rights have progressed to a point of near-parity of the Nur to non-Nuric people, discrimination and disparities still persist.

Etymology

The name Nur is an exonym, derived from Roman scholars in the 3rd century CE who thought it to mean the name of the Wansaho people. Nur is instead the Wansahic word for "land" or "earth" as well as it being the name of the Wansahic High Spirit Nur, the spirit of the earth. The Roman historian (nomen latinum) called the Sa-Peyopans Nurnii Sapeeyopicus, which gives away an inference that (nomen latinum) source was given the phrase Nur n Sa-pēyop by their guide, meaning "The Land/Earth of the Kingdom of Sapeeyopa" in Sapeeyopic Nur. Despite the actual ethnonyms used by the peoples of the Wansaho civilization such as Wa n Sa'ahoph "That (of)/Those of the Great River" or (phrase to soon make) "Descendant of (Ancestral Progenitor)," the Nur misnomer endured and spread to encompass all Nuric peoples in Matys.